Diet Food Reviews

Apples and Oranges

By: Tanya Patrice | May 25, 2006

As I was reading "6 ways to improve your diet at work" over at Diet-blog.com [I am going to start working in the next few weeks after all], the second tip was take fruits to work! I hope by now that everybody buys fruits weekly! And I hope that I didn't just hear somebody whispering that fruits are expensive, because when it comes to maintaining your health - I don't think $3.00 a week for a 5 pound bag of apples or oranges is too much - and you may need to read Save Money: Some Insurers Pay You to Get Healthy and Staying/Becoming Healthy Helps You Spend Less and Earn More from the folks over at Free Money Finance.

One medium orange has 70 calories, no fat, 28% of the RDA for fiber (7 grams), 14 grams of sugars and 130% of the RDA for vitamin C. I particularly love oranges and this is probably the fruit which I eat the most often. They are great as a healthy snack with easy, ready-made portion control - no need to make a 100 calorie pack for these! So juicy, so sweet, sometimes messy, but always filling. There are three different types, Navel, Valencia and Blood oranges, but let's not forget about the cousins, such as clementines, mandarins, tangelos, and tangerines. Hormel has quite an informative page all about oranges [link] which gives details on the different types, pictures and directions on how to peel oranges.

Unfortunately, there is not much in the way of vitamins and minerals in apples, but fortunately, apples are a good source of some phytonutrients, such as quercitin, that has been shown to aid in cancer prevention [visit this link for more on the health benefits of apples]. Some people like to dip apple slices in caramel and other dips, but I can't say I'm a big fan of that - I just don't need the extra calories, or the extra grams of sugar. Apple slices turn brown after a while, and to help slow this down, you can immerse it in water, use FruitFresh (found in most supermarkets), or put the slices in some lime juice (or anything else acidic).

Growing up in a tropical country, I was always eating fruits as something was always in season - and it didn't hurt that we had a few mango trees and a cherry tree in our yard, along with a pomegranate across the street. I'm trying to curb my appetite for 'processed snacks' and getting back to eating more fruits seems to be working so far.

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